STAR TREK: "THE MENAGERIE" (1966) IN THEATERS NOV 13!

Anthony Pascale at Trek Movie Report writes:

A year before J.J. Abrams brings his vision of The Original Series to the big screen, the original Original Series is going to get a go. CBS just announced a special presentation of the remastered "The Menagerie" on November 13th at almost 300 theaters nationwide. Both parts of "The Menagerie" will be shown in HD and cinema surround sound. The presentation includes a 30 minute behind-the-scenes featurette about the remastering. You can find theaters and buy tickets at Fathom Events ($12.50). More info at STARTREK.com.

Fantastic news for any "Boy That Time Forgot." It even appears as though it will play Spokane, a miracle in itself. Hope lots of people go and take their children--show 'em what little boys (and girls), the nation itself, used to aspire to. Okay...where was I? Oh yes, that writing thing....

--WS

X-RAY RIDER Rides On!

Okay, my kiddies and legions of flying monkeys...it's back to grad school. I won't be posting for a time as I'll be working on my thesis, X-Ray Rider. It's about a kid with a macabre imagination coming to terms with tragedy--two of them: losing his mother and just plain growing up. But it's more Fessenden's Wendigo than Tobias Wolfe's This Boy's Life. Until next time....

Grandma Alice and "Skinny"

Like my mother, Alice is someone I'd do anything to talk to as an adult. She was smarter even than Mom and turned me on to Joseph Heller's Catch-22 when I was still nose-deep in comic books. I don't even know her heritage. The man next to her can only be "Skinny," someone Mom spoke of affectionately and often. He got the monicker because he was "skinny as a pole" in his youth but more than made up for it later. Doesn't he look like a great guy? Alice worked for the War Department during WW II; she smoked, she drank, and she didn't take guff from anybody. There were things she tried to tell me after my mother's death, life-things she tried to warn me about, but I was too young to listen.

Isn't it a shame. It takes a lifetime to get on the same page, and by then we are no longer in the same world.

Two Lost Worlds in One

Somewhere in Utah at the Twilight of the Modern Era.

SPEAKING OF LOST WORLDS:

Field research, MFA-style. Exploring the ruins of Spokane's North Cedar Drive-in in 2006, for X-Ray Rider.

Gratuitous shot of my Pacific Green '97 Mustang -- my current time-machine.

The Cold Equation relents for no one...and nothing. Time and nature have nearly reclaimed the once palatial North Cedar.

"And, oh boy, the first time I saw my father's brand new 1968 El Camino...."

"His father has purchased a white 1968 El Camino with a black vinyl roof and matching decals, but in the boy’s eyes he has purchased a starship, a time machine, a projectile boasting twin-domed hood scoops with louvered ports and long, pin-striped rear quarter panels—like warp nacelles—which through an alchemy known to certain boys and girls can bend space, can stop time."

-- from X-Ray Rider

"...and the first time I saw my brother Shawn's [newly painted] Firebird."

Just like the one in American Beauty, only black.